


I wounded the good and I trusted the wicked.

by everydaytomholland



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence - Iron Man 2, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Near Death Experiences, Palladium Poisoning, Pepperony - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 00:29:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20573462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everydaytomholland/pseuds/everydaytomholland
Summary: Iron Man 2 canon divergenceAfter the fiasco with Vanko at the Grand Prix in Monaco, Pepper takes up Tony's offer to go to Venice. Their relationship changes significantly, meanwhile Tony's health is plummeting.





	I wounded the good and I trusted the wicked.

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I got this idea, I'm just gonna write a quick drabble.
> 
> Also me: *writes nearly 3.5k words*
> 
> I have an over 12k long HYDRA!Peter Parker fic I'm hoping to finish soon and post in the next few weeks but knowing me, life will probably get in the way.

Tony walked into the main cabin of the private jet. He could hear that idiot Senator Stern talking about him before he even saw that Pepper was watching it. He stood behind her silently for a few moments, watching and listening. He wanted to be angry at the things Stern was saying, but he knew it was pointless. Vanko’s appearance in a suit was a complete shock to him. And what was worse, he didn’t think he had the time left to prove himself. The symptoms from the palladium core were getting worse and worse, and with no viable replacement, he knew it was only a matter of time before his body stopped being able to fight it. He looked at Pepper again, sad about all the things he’d probably never get to experience with her.

“Mute.” he said as he walked fully into the cabin, unable to listen anymore. “He should be giving me a medal. That’s the truth.” Sometimes he surprised himself at how quickly he slipped on his arrogant mask.  
He sat down in the seat opposite Pepper, setting down the plate and cutlery he’d been carrying.  
“What is that?” she asked him.   
“This is your in-flight meal.” he responded, lifting the cloche to reveal the omelette he’d made.  
“Did you just make that?” she asked, he almost wanted to laugh at the barely concealed disgust on her face. Admittedly it wasn’t his best attempt at cooking, but far from his worst, also.  
“Yeah.” he feigned offence, “where do you think I’ve been for three hours?”  
“Tony,” she said softly, “what are you not telling me?”   
He had to look out the window, because he knew that if he looked at her in that moment, he’d spill it all. He took a breath before turning to face her. They stared at each other for a few moments before he managed to come up with an excuse.  
“I don’t want to go home. At all.” she looked at him inquiringly, barely concealed sympathy hidden behind her eyes. “Let’s cancel my birthday party and- uh. We’re in Europe, let’s go to Venice. Cipriani.”  
She scoffed.  
“You remember?”  
“Oh yes.” she didn’t sound impressed. At first he’d been covering, but he suddenly realised this was exactly what he needed. But he needed to convince her too, he needed her there.  
“It’s a great place to… to be healthy.”  
“I don’t think it’s the right time. We’re in kind of a mess.”  
“Yeah but maybe that’s why it’s the best time.”

Pepper knew Tony Stark almost better than she knew herself. It was why she knew there was something he wasn’t telling her. A piece of the puzzle she was missing. And yet despite herself, she desperately wanted to take him up on the offer. She wasn’t oblivious to how he felt about her, nor was she ignorant of her own, equal feelings. She’d never known Tony to turn down a party, and yet here he was offering to cancel one just for her. And she had another motivation. Maybe if she agreed to go on a trip with just the two of them, she’d be able to get this secret out of him.   
“Yeah.” she said finally. “Venice sounds great.”   
“Well okay then.” he smiled at her. It was that soft smile that she loved, he never looked more beautiful than when he smiled that smile.  
“But Tony?” she said. He gestured for her to continue. “I’m not eating that.” she said, pointing to the half burnt, half raw omelette.   
He chuckled and picked up the plate.   
“Fair enough, I’ll go tell the pilot.”  
He lingered for a moment, as if he was considering something. Then he unexpectedly pressed a soft kiss to her forehead before leaving the room.  
It was only two nights, she figured, what was the worst that could happen?

Famous last words.

It was early evening when they landed in Venice, and by the time they made the trip down the Grand Canal, it was dark out, but the water looked beautiful, the lights of the city reflecting off it. The water taxi reached their stop, only a short walk from their hotel. Tony exited first then held out his hand to help her off the boat. He didn’t let go of her hand and she made no moves to take it back from him. 

Within minutes of arriving they were escorted up to the presidential suite and before they knew it they were alone again, just the two of them. She left him briefly to change into something more comfortable. She had no idea what to expect from the evening, but figured she could change again if needed, and decided on sweatpants and a loose sweater. He seemed to have had a similar idea, wearing a faded Metallica t-shirt and what looked like plaid pajama pants. 

Almost silently, they ordered room service and settled themselves onto his bed. Neither of them were really paying attention to the movie playing, just enjoying each others company. 

She felt him reach up and brush his fingers through her hair, placing a strand behind her ear. She turned to look at him and saw so much emotion and affection in his eyes. She knew what he was asking without him having to say it. She smiled softly at him, giving permission. So he kissed her. 

A small part of her was still bitter about him abandoning her on the balcony several months ago, but right in this moment, she thought it was all worth it for this kiss.   
“You know,” she whispered, “I always thought kissing you might be weird, but this just feels-”  
“Right.” he finished. 

She went in for the kiss this time. Both of them more needy than the first time, things were quickly heating up. Next thing she knew, they’d both taken their shirts off and he was on top of her. She knew his track record with women, it was why she’d resisted him for so many years. But she knew he wasn’t that man anymore, and she wanted this. 

But just as quickly as it started, it was over. She didn’t know what had happened, but he was lying next to her, on his side, facing away.   
“Tony?” she asked. He didn’t respond. “Tony I’m not mad, will you please look at me?”  
He turned to face her and she could see the conflict across his face. What was worse was that she could see the tears brimming in his eyes, threatening to fall.  
“What happened, Tony?” she asked again, much softer than last time. Her hand cupped the side of his face, thumb stroking his cheekbone. He closed his eyes, relishing in the feeling.  
“I’m sorry, Pep.” he whispered. “I want to. I just can’t. Not tonight.”  
“It’s okay.” she responded. I can wait til you’re ready.”  
She turned to leave, to spend the night in her own bed, but he grabbed her wrist.  
“Stay?” he pleaded.  
“Yeah, of course.”

She put her shirt back on and got back into bed, curling up to Tony and resting her head on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her.  
“You know you’ll have to tell me what’s wrong, eventually.” she said, kissing his chest.  
“I know.” he whispered. He kissed her forehead and they both eventually fell asleep.

It was a siren just outside the building that startled Pepper awake just after 4am. It took a few minutes for her racing heart to settle down, but when it finally did she could hear it. She could hear a strange wheezing sound coming from next to her. It was then that she remembered where she was and who she was with.  
“Tony?” she whispered. He didn’t respond but the wheezing continued. Slightly concerned, she turned on the lamp next to the bed.

She was horrified by what she saw. Tony was asleep still, but his lips were tinged blue, he was clearly struggling to breathe. He was also covered in a sheen of sweat and had a slight fever, but his hands were freezing cold. 

She rushed around to his side of the bed and tapped his cheek, trying to wake him. She practically had to slap him to finally get him to stir.

He blinked awake sluggishly, but didn’t seem to notice her there, even though he was looking right at her. She was definitely panicked now.

She grabbed his phone from the dresser and asked JARVIS to call an ambulance, going immediately back to his side. She held one of his hands, while using his other to stroke his hair from his sweaty forehead. She wasn’t sure if she was imagining things, but it sounded like his breathing was getting worse.

After 10 minutes, he finally seemed to realise she was there.  
“Pep.” he whispered, looking at her with half lidded eyes.   
“Shhh,” she responded, “I’m right here, you’ll be fine.”

Before he could say anything else, the paramedics rushed into the suite. She moved away to give them room to work. Except after a few moments Tony realised she was gone and started panicking. The medics needed him to calm down so they could help him, so they ushered Pepper back over to sit next to him while they worked. Tony kept his eyes on her while they did an evaluation and inserted an IV. They were really concerned about his oxygen levels, and ended up having to intubate him. Tony was too lethargic and weak to stop them, but he kept his eyes on Pepper the whole time. Once his breathing was more stable, they sedated him. He took one last look at Pepper before his eyes fluttered shut. 

After that it was a mad rush to get him to a hospital, but Pepper still didn’t leave his side. Not until they got to the hospital and took him away to run some tests. Pepper didn’t rest. She called Happy, Natalie and Rhodey, trying to organise a transfer back to the US as soon as they could. It wasn’t until she was finally sitting by Tony’s bedside while he slept, hearing nothing but the hissing of the ventilator and the beeping of monitors that she let herself cry.

Tony was dying. That was the secret that he’d been keeping from her. The Arc Reactor that was keeping him alive was also slowly killing him. Somehow she couldn’t appreciate the irony. Now that she knew, JARVIS helped fill her in on the missing information. That Tony had known for a while. That he’d had no luck in finding a viable replacement. That he’d left her his shares of Stark Industries in his will. She didn’t even want to entertain that last one.

Eventually, she joined Tony on the particularly large hospital bed, curling up next to him, like she had just hours ago under very different circumstances, and went to sleep.

This time, she woke to a nurse shaking her shoulder. It took her a few moments to wake, but when she did she saw that Tony was still in the position he’d been in the night prior, no better or worse.  
“The sedative is wearing off, he should wake soon.” the nurse told her in Italian. She’d never been more grateful to speak the language.  
“Grazie, signora.” The nurse nodded at her curtly and left. 

After going to the bathroom and brushing her teeth, Pepper resumed her place in the chair beside Tony’s bed, answering emails while she waited for him to wake up.

She had dozens of messages from investors and shareholders wanting to know what was happening, as well as a whole lot of regular business emails, all of which she read and promptly ignored. It was the emails from Rhodey, Happy, and Natalie that she was interested in. Natalie told her she’d take care of business and not to worry about anything on that end. Happy was helping her, while also making it abundantly clear that his services were available as soon as she was back stateside. Rhodey just wanted to know which Hospital they were at, and whether any military resources were needed to transport Tony back to the US. she was grateful to all of them, glad that they had her back, but more importantly that they were there for Tony.

She looked up at him and was startled to see his hazy eyes staring back at her. Abandoning her phone, she immediately pulled her chair closer and picked up his hand closest to her, stroking his hair, much like she had the night before.  
“Hey,” she whispered, “it’s really nice to see those eyes of yours.”  
He tried to smile but it was hard with the ventilator still snaking out of his mouth.  
“You scared me so much. Why didn’t you tell me how sick you are?”  
His eyes were shiny, glistening with tears, the unspoken apology was evident.  
“Shhh, it’s okay. We’re gonna get you some help, I promise. We’ll find a way to fix this.”  
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek, causing him to close his eyes briefly.  
“Now, are you in any pain?”  
He squeezed her hand as tight as he could, which wasn’t much given how weak he was, and nodded his head slowly.   
“Okay, we’ll call the nurse and see what we can do about that.”

The nurse came bustling in a minute later. It was only as Tony was sagging in relief from the pain meds that Pepper noticed the man that had trailed in behind her.  
“Phil?”  
“Hi Pepper.” responded Agent Coulson.   
“What are you doing in Venice?” she was more than a little confused.  
“Heard you and Mr Stark could use some help.” he said, as if it were that simple.  
“You have a cure?” she said, hopefully.  
“No,” he said shortly, “but SHIELD has something that’ll help keep the symptoms at bay. As well as some pieces of a puzzle, hopefully he’ll be able to put them together.” It wasn’t what she was hoping for, but it was better than anything else they had.  
“Okay, go for it.”  
“Not just yet, Miss Potts.”  
“Why the hell not?” It wasn’t how she normally liked to conduct herself, but this was far from a normal situation.  
“We need to transfer him back to the States first. The treatment we have will only last so long. Better we administer it there and give him as long as possible to work out the cure, yes?”  
She looked back at Tony who was now sleeping fitfully, ventilator still breathing for him.  
“Alright. Just do it.”

Less than 24 hours later, they were in Tony’s house in Malibu. They’d just taken Tony off the ventilator and left him with just an oxygen mask on. Pepper held one of his hands between both of hers while they administered the medicine. She held her breath, waiting for him to wake up. It took just 5 minutes for him to wake, becoming alert so quickly she almost could’ve forgotten he was dying at all. Once he was awake, they moved him to a sofa so Nick Fury could talk to them. Tony had held onto Pepper’s hand so tightly, not willing to let her go. 

While they were waiting for Fury, he turned to her with apologies pouring from him. She let him ramble for a minute before cutting him off with a kiss.  
“Let me help you fix this, and I might consider forgiving you.” she whispered in his ear.  
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” he whispered back.

She leaned into him, resting her face in between his neck and shoulder, while he held her tight around her waist. They didn’t move the entire time Fury was speaking.

And then they were alone again, just the two of them; though they knew Happy was also somewhere in the building. Pepper sat with him while he watched the videos of Howard, holding his hand and knowing the deep pain associated with Howard that’d never go away, no matter how much he simultaneously mourned his parents. She was the one who first suggested that the model of the original Stark Expo could be a hidden clue, and she knew just where that model was now. 

Happy had it back at the house for them in a matter of hours. Though she could hold her own, Pepper was no match for Tony when it came to science, so she mostly sat in the back of the lab, watching him work and making sure he ate and drank regularly. She also worked on her emails, helping Natalie remotely and trying to not pay attention to how Tony was slowly deteriorating again. 

He woke her up from the sofa in the corner just a few hours later.  
“Pep.” he whispered gently. “I worked it out.” She jumped awake quickly.  
“You did?”  
“Yeah,” he replied, beaming. “But I need you to go.”  
“I- what?” she was thoroughly confused.   
“I’m gonna need to destroy the house a little. Make a little particle accelerator.”  
“Tony. I can help.” she didn’t want to leave. Not after everything they’d been through the last few days.  
“I know you can, honey.” her heart fluttered at the term of endearment. “But I need your help elsewhere. Vanko is alive. He’s working with Justin Hammer. I need you to go to the expo and stop whatever they’ve got planned. Get Rhodey to help. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”  
“Okay,” she nodded curtly, pushing her feelings out of the way and focusing on the task at hand. “Be safe.”  
“For you, always.” he kissed her deeply before letting her go.

Pepper flew with Happy, working the whole time on establishing extra safety precautions with Natalie, who was already in Queens, just in case something went wrong before Tony could get there. It was the call with Rhodey that really made her nervous. He was a part of Hammer’s presentation, but thankfully he believed Pepper and promised he’d see what he could find out from his side and intervene if and where possible. She hoped it was all a big misunderstanding and nothing would go wrong.

No such luck. She was sitting in the third row of the audience when Tony arrived. Minutes later, all of Hammer’s drones started shooting. Pepper ran backstage to talk to her security team to ensure the safety of the civilians above all else. One of Hammer’s idiot staff were there controlling the computer, but she was able to remove him quite quickly. Natalie was there too, except she didn’t look like herself.  
“Natlie, what are you-”  
“Ma’am, my name is Natasha Romanoff. I’m a SHIELD agent who’s been working undercover.”  
Pepper tried to ignore the feeling of betrayal, because quite frankly it made too much sense.  
“Right,” she said, curtly, “What can your people do to help.”  
“Already working on it.” Natasha responded.

Pepper walked outside the pavilion with several members of staff 20 minutes later. Justin Hammer had been arrested and a lot of the chaos had died down. She knew Vanko was still out there but Tony and Rhodey were on top of it. She sent the men to coordinate different parts of the cleanup process. She was still standing on those steps a few minutes later when a half-destroyed drone several feet from her started beeping. She looked at it curiously but before she had time to get too close, Iron Man came flying in and picked her up. They were already 100 feet in the air when the drone she’d been looking at exploded, as well as all of the others around various parts of the park.

Maybe it was knowing that all the chaos of the last week or so was finally over, but by the time they landed on the roof of a nearby building, she was nearly hysterical. She started ranting about everything, not really even knowing what she was saying.

Tony listened to her for a few moments, slowly getting closer before eventually cutting her off with a kiss. She melted into it, suddenly calm at the thought of being safe in Tony’s arms, especially now that he wasn’t dying. They pulled apart and spoke quietly to each other for a moment before leaning in again, finding comfort in each other. Then Rhodey cut them off.

She could see in his eyes that he was only pretending to be annoyed at them, so she didn’t make to move from where Tony had his arms around her. And when Rhodey flew away a few minutes later, the whole world melted away with him.

It was just her and Tony, alone on the roof, somehow exactly where they were supposed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments/kudos are love!
> 
> Follow me on:  
Twitter @everydaytomhol1   
Tumblr: everydaytomholland
> 
> Always happy to accept prompts at either.


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